That Which Does Not Kill Me
by Renea
Summary: I was attacked by a plot bunny. Had a female Saiyan survived, their species' only hope for survival would have depended on, well, Nappa. NappaOC
1. The Conservation Effort

Holy crap, I can't believe I'm, submitting this xD;;

Ladies and gentlemen, behold! xDD A crappy sue for yet another fandom. Please forgive me.

I've been obsessing over my old super-sues recently. Like, the ones from when I was 12, and absolutely failed (more than I do now xD). I've been meaning to remake them, and attempt to make them less...uh...awful. Just for fun, as a character exercise. Anyway, I hadn't meant to upload anything with them here, but I got attacked by a plot bunny. Something occured to me, and it was just to lulzy to not write. Then I started, and as usual, it wasn't funny. I just can't do funny, I don;t know why I try xD;

Anyway, it's been forever since I really watched this show, and I just wanted to submit this before it dissappears ( as stuff has been doing), since my computer's been acting up. I apologize if the characterization absolutely fails xD;; maybe I'll watch more episodes (I can't now, I'm on the old computer that's wicked slow and videos absolutely kill it) and fix this. I really should. He's going to end up somewhere between Butler from artemis fowl, and the 'Are we there yet?' guy of the abridged series, I just know it. Ugh xD; I apologize for this again.

DBZ belongs to Akira Toriyama, and DBZ TAS belongs to team four star

* * *

"Do you need some time to grieve?"

The falsely sympathetic comment did nothing to tear the Saiyan's attention from the debris floating past their craft. She remained fixed where she had settled after reaching the bridge, her arms folded and tail swishing anxiously as she picked the shreds of their satellites out from the ruins of the planet itself. "No," the young woman answered after a moment's pause, "it's simply a great deal to take in at once." She reigned in a sigh that left as a slow breath, and unhooked the device over her eye from her ear. "We are a warrior-culture, above all else. Grief for the dead, while a noble ideal, does nothing but hinder the living." She inclined her head as her eyes followed the flowing cluster of rock and dust, transfixed. "I was called back here very suddenly, and my mission was left half finished. Should I leave to complete it now?"

She could see the rest of the room from the window's reflection. The Lizard's grin grew unnerving, and he glanced at right and left hand men from the corner of his eye. All three chuckled knowingly. "Don't trouble yourself, Princess. I will send another team to finish readying the planet for sale."

Dark eyebrows furrowed over narrowed dark eyes, and strong hands gripped strong forearms more tightly. "I assure you, lord Freiza, that mission was well within my capabilities. Had I not been instructed to return here at once, I would most certainly have been-"

Another ripple of laughter passed through the lizard and his assorted men. "I assure you, Princess, we are all well aware of your… capabilities."

The Saiyan woman drew in a steady breath, willing the tension from her posture and stance. She recognized the dig, but refused to dignify it with reaction, and held her scouter loosely in one hand, rolling it between her thumb and fingers with an idle motion of her wrist. "Where is my brother?"

"Here, and safe, I assure you," the lizard promised with a nod of his horned head, and a false-smile. "They landed safely moments ago."

The girl turned away from the remnants of her planet, to meet the other's eye. "'They', Lord Freiza?"

"That is what I wished to discuss," the smile grew even more worrisome. "Your race has met a great calamity, and only a handful of you have survived. Of that handful, only one adult male has survived, and you, Princess, are likely the only female of your kind left alive. As a precaution, I've taken you off of active duty indefinitely. If you want to save your now-endangered species, I'd suggest starting immediately."

"I…" She shook her head and inhaled unsteadily. "I'm afraid I don't understand. It was my belief that the only other survivors were my brother, and two low-class children, one an infant on an alien planet."

"Ah, but the Prince was not alone," Frieza corrected with a sinister grin, and the Saiyan royal immediately remembered him to be correct. Though she could not put a name or face to her brother's companion, she did know him to exist. The man was more scenery than anything else, not unlike a mountain; a blur in her memory, filling space beside the heir-apparent.

A rush of air signaled the door's opening, and two sets of footsteps, one considerably heavier than another, clanked along the metal floor as they stepped onto the bridge. The woman whirled around, the long black braid occupying her hair spun with her, landing against her hip. The first, smaller figure was pleasantly familiar, the giant only vaguely so. She could not resist a sigh, and fought to suppress the uneasy feeling suddenly bubbling in the pit of her stomach.

"You, the big fellow with the receding hairline," Freiza greeted brusquely, "come here, I need a word."

*

Nappa and Vegeta were already familiar with the system aboard Freiza's ship: two to one set of cramped quarters; however, occasionally, special arrangements had to be made for members of larger species who could not reasonably fit into the standard issue bed. Nappa had been allowed to disassemble the stacked bunks and push them together to sleep diagonally across it, and the Prince occupied the next room down, alone. Freiza had no time for special cases anymore, and the two additional Saiyans on board were to share with the original pair. To everyone's ire, the sleeping arrangements had been decided for them. The Princess was small, Nappa was told, and would fit nicely in whatever room he left.

This new arrangement was to be tested immediately; suspended animation was anything but restful, and all but Raditz had only arrived here today, after about a month in the attack ball. Some genuine sleep was necessary, and the Princess, unaccustomed to the ship's layout, followed Nappa silently as they all filed towards their rooms.

The small prince would occasionally glance over his shoulder at the older Saiyan, wearing the same crest on her armor, but said nothing. It had been two years, the General supposed, since the siblings had met. Truth be told, he'd never really seen them together. Almost immediately after being assigned Prince Vegeta's personal bodyguard and trainer, he had been claimed by Freiza and removed from his home planet.

Initially, the three year old boy had spoken fondly about his Father, and occasionally, his sister; however, as he grew, and the hissed comments about his family began to have some meaning, his talkative nature faded. His admiration of his father faded to a solemn respect, and his sister was forgotten entirely.

For the past six years, Nappa had worked closely with the King, and had spent a fair bit of time around the royals' Spartan residence, and had heard more than his share of gossip, most of it bordering on treason. As a result, he knew a considerably amount about the girl the royal family was so desperate to sweep under the figurative rug– less than some, but more than most.

She was ten years his junior, and Nappa could still remember the surge of national pride that had swept their people when it was discovered that their Queen was with child, and though there had been no mention of a problem, when the birth of Princess Tomta was announced officially, it had been terribly clear to any citizen with two brain cells to knock together that something was terribly wrong.

This was not the traditional name of a first-born royal. The name Vegeta, or the female alternative Vegetea, had been passed down through their line for generations, long before King Vegeta had united the tribes against the Tuffles, and there was only one reason to forgo it. Vegeta and his Queen were keeping it in reserve, fully intending to try for a second child, deserving of the title. Nothing was ever said, but everyone knew the terrible truth: the Princess had been born weak.

As she grew, she did little to prove the initial assessments wrong. By far, the most frustrating aspect of Tomta's disgrace was the girl's potential. She quickly proved to be a credit to her family, but not in the one way that truly counted. While wonderfully intelligent, eager to please, hardworking and completely fearless, the child's power level grew at a glacial pace, and she fought and clawed for every degree.

After seven years of no great improvement and no other heir, it was decided that she would never be fit to rule. The most beneficial thing she could ever hope do for her people was to bear strong children with a stronger man, in hopes that one of them would be ready to take the throne from her father when the time came.

Nappa had known the boy selected. Though six years younger, the particular second-class orphan had been blessed with an exceptional power level, and so roomed in barracks, and attended training sessions with much older warriors. The boy, Leik, had simply disappeared, having been pulled from all classes and amateur assignment to train exclusively with the Princess. He served as her sparring partner, her protector, and most importantly, her betrothed.

The rumours had begun immediately and grew as she did, suspicious elites and third-classes alike speculating on every fact manufactured, or smuggled from the palace by a tattling guard or nurse. Deformed, crippled, too sickly to fight, the people whispered as a shadow of doubt swept over their disappointment. King Vegeta could never have fathered something so weak; the girl had no claim to the throne. Some braver, or in his mind, more foolish traitors went further. The Queen was an unfaithful whore, they insisted. The girl was a bastard, with no claim to the throne. King Vegeta could never father something so pitiful.

Nappa loved traitors. He especially enjoyed the delightful crunching noise they made under his boot.

The General knew better than to pay hearsay any heed. Again, he knew more than most, and was privy to the root of her disgrace. The boy was powerful, but had no head for strategy and found himself with little chance of promotion. This was especially true when his mediocre record was taken into consideration. The odd second class mission appeared on his file, but as the Princess' constant companion, third class missions were by far the norm. A first class mission was simply too much; while child's play for him, Leik could not be entrusted with Lady Tomta's safety on an assignment of that difficulty. Nappa, however, had been free to prove himself in the harshest of conditions, and had flown through the ranks, eventually finding himself the future Prince-Consort's commanding officer. Leik had been required to report back to him, in great detail.

A Saiyan's power level grows rapidly compared to most other species because of one particular trait. Any heavily damaged tissue, when given the opportunity to recover, will heal to be far stronger than it had been previously. From what he, and every perplexed medical officer on the planet could gather, this was not Tomta's case.

The Princess was blessed with an incredible capacity for determination (or perhaps outright stubbornness) that would have served any other Saiyan well. A surprising percentage of her training sessions ended in a recovery chamber, always at the hands of a reluctant and guilt wracked Leik; however, the recovery, even from being beaten to within an inch of her life, showed no increase in her power level. If anything, the time recovery took from training reduced it slightly.

Admitting that their heir presumptive was defective was worse than admitting her weak, and so the rumours continued unchecked. By all accounts, her power level was dismal, but varied greatly from source to source. Some claimed several hundred, while the more generous gossip placed it at three thousand. Nappa knew it to be somewhere in the vicinity of twenty five hundred, and hadn't increased notably since she was about fifteen– the year Prince Vegeta had been born and she had ceased to be of any consequence.

Lost in thought, he came to a halt, absentmindedly, after inadvertently striding past his door. Prince Vegeta and the third class boy– Raditz if he wasn't mistaken– lingered a few feet back before their own quarters. Perhaps it was a guilty conscience, but as the General stepped back to allow the Princess into his room, he could have sworn that her brother shot him a glare that would have stripped the armour from an attack ball.

* * *

So there's my plot bunny xD;; If a female Saiyan were to survive, the species' only hope would have been Nappa xD;;; Why do I find that hilarious?

As I'm sure you've gathered, Tomta and Leik are puns on Tomato and Leek respectively. I thought it fitting to name her after a fruit (rather than a vegetable like everyone else, 'cept the pumpkin guy from the movie) because she's something of a freak xD;;

Again, please forgive me. This is probably just a lapse in my judgement cause by exam-stress and lack of sleep xD;; I will regret posting this tomorrow, yes I will.

Night all~! I'm off to bed.


	2. Getting to Know You

Chapter two :)

A big thanks to all reading~!

Also, because of this chapter and some weird remarks between myself and my beta reader, Tomta has been dubbed "Princess Space Accountant" xD

Disclaimer: Dbz belongs to Akira Toriyama, and all of those other people who aren't me~

Edit: my little marks to indicate a change of scene keep dissappearing. WTF. fixed it.

* * *

She had spoken to him twice that evening: once to inform, politely, him that he was kneeling on her tail, and a curt 'sleep well, General' before rolling herself over into her small corner of the bed and feigning sleep. Nappa was wrong, he supposed, to assume that this would put them on anything like a first-name basis.

Time was arbitrary in space, decided by an addled internal clock, and so it felt as though it were early morning as the Saiyan man stared at the low ceiling above him uneasily, the princess's still wakeful breathing keeping him from sleep. He turned towards the opposite wall, onto his side to make more room, straining his ears for any tiny sound of disapproval from the next room over. His stomach churned when he admitted to himself, reluctantly, that this was his charge's sister.

Besides that, the guilt stemmed from a social convention embedded to deeply into their culture to discard. A Saiyan princess was, without question, completely off limits. Any question to the paternity of her offspring would be catastrophic. Any man, outside of her decided partner, deemed to familiar with the princess could potentially upset the entire line for the throne. Not to mention that her intended would blast him to pieces. Leik hadn't been much of a soldier, but he was exceptionally powerful nonetheless.

He was also dead, so this was a moot point.

General, Princess, first class, second, third, what did it matter between the four of them? There was no reason for his gut to twist uneasily as he glanced down at the sleeping female. He was far stronger than she was, and she no longer had to power to have him court marshaled or executed. Social standings meant nothing now, except that, to him at least, they did.

Five living Saiyans or one, Vegeta would always be his prince; an ingrained reverence for the man who had united them all against a common enemy, whose blood flowed in Vegeta's veins, and yes, his sister's as well. That respect was more than a tiny thing like the apocalypse could shake.

Carrying on that bloodline should be an honor, not a chore, and he was quite literally the only man for the job. At least until Raditz matured. The Princess be passed to him at that time, of course, for the sake of genetic diversity, and also for this reason, finding genetically compatible females on other planets would always be a priority. He simply had to stop imagining the King rolling in his figurative grave. This offence certainly paled in comparison to letting their kind die out, and as a General, he was certainly qualified to father royal children.

He nodded resolutely, and felt his gut unknot with this conclusion. After all, he told himself, he was as good a candidate as Leik had ever been, if not better. The boy had been dying anyway. For all Nappa knew, he could very easily have been chosen by her father himself when the inevitable happened.

The young woman's breathing had steadied, save for the occasional, shuddering breath that he refused to acknowledge as a sob. With a heavy creak of the bed's frame, the hulking Saiyan turned, momentarily, to glance in her direction. The Princess was tiny for a Saiyan, and while her mother had been of small stature, it had not been to this extent. Nappa had seen similarly stunted growth in low level soldiers without the sense to stop training during a growth spurt. She'd barely come up to Leik's shoulder, and was smaller still beside the general. Their height difference was such that it was difficult to get a good look at the girl, and his insomnia had left him bored, and his boredom had left him curious. Her uncanny resemblance to her late mother (though he supposed everyone was late now), was unsettling, and so he set himself rather intently to scanning her face and tiny frame for something to distinguish her from Queen Tilen, and settle his still-guilty stomach. He found very little, and rolled away in disgust. The man quirked an eyebrow at the unnatural pile of her armor resting neatly against the wall.

She was lovely, but the woman was a machine. Nappa had known Saibamen with more personality. As difficult as this made him to deal with, Prince Vegeta's nerve at least made for interesting conversation.

---

Books, he decided, made people boring. Or book learning, at least. It was difficult to come to another conclusion as he glanced over his tiny charge's tuft of spikey hair at the solitary figure bent over a table towards the back of the room, eyes on papers as the tray of food beside her went neglected. The food in question wasn't particularly appetizing, but watching a fellow Saiyan ignore a hot meal was bordering on the surreal. The prince hummed impatiently under his breath, and it was only as Nappa's attention was torn from the female that he realized that he'd left his own plate untouched. He shook his head as he shoveled a mouthful, brows still furrowed as he swallowed. "What is she_** doing?**_"

"Translations, no doubt," the boy replied with a smirk and a roll of his dark eyes. "The weakling can't fight. She has to be good for something or other."

The intervention of the Planet Trade Organization had provided the Saiyans with an unprecedented problem– diplomacy. The Kold empire introduced them to the true magnitude of the night's sky, and the countless other peoples with which they were now in contact. Occasionally, brute strength was not the desired approach. Perhaps a people were only useful alive, perhaps it was business, but for whatever reason, Tomta had been set to learning language and culture when her training efforts were deemed wasted. Freiza's diverse crew provided an ample supply of potential teachers, and she had supposedly tackled the page with all of the zeal she poured into a fight, albeit less happily.

"What'd she be translating, Vegeta?"

The Prince sniffed indignantly. "Messages from clients, I'd suppose. I don't trouble myself with her menial work."

"I don't understand," Nappa screwed his face into a scowl. "There's gotta be at least somebody on this ship who speaks whatever it is she's translating."

Vegeta stabbed viciously at a steamed root vegetable, popping the thing into his mouth. The subject was irking him, and Nappa knew better than to press it further. "Because," he snapped, "not just _**anyone **_can be trusted with the business arrangements."

Nappa nodded dumbly. His attention had been caught elsewhere.

He wasn't entirely sure what it was that had drawn her attention from her work, but the girl stood, and made her way across the crowded mess hall, and towards two contrasting figures by themselves in a corner. It was odd, he supposed, that Freiza's right and left hands were here with the rest of them, but this was where the food was, and where everyone but the lizard himself ate; however, this was not simple barracks politics– who sits where, who speaks to whom. This was suicide, and excusing himself with a hurried grunt, the General pushed himself to his feet.

"Excuse me." Her voice was level, gentle, and rather out of place among the elites. She bowed politely, sticking to the common tongue though Nappa had no doubt she could converse in either of their native languages. Neither seemed to notice her for a moment, until slowly, in a sort of disbelief, they turned their attention towards the offending Saiyan woman. She indicated something on Zarbon's tray with a slight inclination of her head. "Might I please have that? I would be more than willing to trade for it." The two looked bewildered, then vaguely amused as she began to plead her case.

He'd reached them, squeezing his way between irked soldiers and fixed tables, and could now see what she was so intent on retrieving. Bright, mottled blood red in places, a piece of fruit about the size of both of her tiny fists lay carelessly in the corner of his tray. They'd restocked the food stores from their home planet a long while back, and hadn't had time to again between their arrival in the area, and the calamity. He'd seen the cactus fruit out previously (it kept a good long time when frozen), but didn't think anything of it until now, after his return. He glanced both at the tables surrounding them, and at the counter to find no other bright points of red. This was the last of it.

A grin pulled at the corners of Dodoria's rubbery purple lips. "You want this?"

She nodded, oblivious or uncaring of the disdain saturating his voice. "Yes, please."

The massive alien's hand slowly crept to his companion's tray, and settled over the lumpy fruit. He took hold of the thing, fingernails leaving crescent marks into the waxy exterior as he moved to offer it to the Princess. Just as she moved graciously to accept it, the Commander shoved the thing unceremoniously into his mouth with a satisfied grin stretched around it's outline.

Nappa had reached them. "I wouldn't do that–" he began uneasily, stopping short beside the small woman, who watched unblinking as Dodoria messily devoured the last of her home planet, juice dribbling down his chin and bits of purple-white flesh. Zarbon eyed the other with revulsion, edging away and pushing his tray away and stood to leave.

"Between your eating and the monkeys, somehow I've lost my appetite," he muttered as he pushed past them.

Dodoria swallowed with an audible gulp, and spat the pit at Tomta's face. Unflinching, her hand closed around it before it met it's mark at her forehead. She turned on her heel and set back towards her papers. He turned his attention back to Nappa, voice menacing. "Were you threatening me?"

"Well, no," he replied wincing. "'S just that I've never seen anyone foreign eat the peel before. Takes a special kind of gut to handle that stuff... I mean, we were made to eat it, but...." He cocked his head to the side, and the ridges above Dodoria's eyes dipped as his brow furrowed, purple-rimmed eyes widening for a moment when he caught the implication. "You might wanna keep a bucket on hand," he added as he loped after the female.

"Are you insane?" his hissed when his longer strides met her head start.

"It's been suggested."

"What was that even about?" He caught himself, and tacked a hurried 'my lady' on to the blurted demand. She flicked her eyes in his direction, wearily.

"There's no need for that, General." His mouth twitched at the hypocrisy, but he held his tongue. "I have what I was after." She'd reached her table, and set the slimy, slobbery, seed down onto her untouched tray with a shudder, searching for something to wipe the revolting Dodoria drool from her hand. She had no pant-legs, and searched in quiet frenzy for something to clear the drying, sticky mess, and pursed her lips in disapproval when he offered her one of her papers. Desperation won, however, and she accepted a blank sheet and took her seat again, crumpling it into a ball. Nappa, for some reason, elected to take up the seats opposite her.

"Either of those guys would've been more than happy to end you. You know that, right?"

She glanced up at him momentarily, then returned to her work. "So you were trying to save me, then? I don't usually act on impulse. I apologize for inconveniencing you."

The conversation ground to a halt with that, and his eyes flickered uneasily back to the anchored table where the Prince continued to stab at vegetables, as content alone as not. Real food was important on the ship. One couldn't expect to live off of dried and salted mission rations for any length of time and expect to stay strong, and so the ship was loaded at every rare opportunity with things that could be well preserved on board for long stretches of time between planets. He eyed her scant tray of now tepid grains and a scant hunk of defrosted meat from some alien animal he couldn't identify. Only the murky glass of stale water had been touched. He frowned. She was a fraction of his size, but still, a Saiyan needed to consume more than most to account for their monstrously paced metabolism. It wasn't enough, and she wasn't eating it to begin with. She glanced up to find him eyeing her food. "You're welcome to it if you want it. I'm not really hungry."

Now there was a lie. After a month in cold sleep, she would be ravenous. The large man let it rest, and changed the subject to something more familiar. "You gonna plant that?"

"I'm certainly going to try."

"You're gonna need more than one if you want 'em to grow fruit," he cautioned, and she nodded, wryly, pushing an oddly shaped pile of papers to one side to reveal the precious thing she tucked carefully out of sight. It's bumps were more round than the square bolted fruit Dodoria had devoured, and more purple than red. Different plants, but the same species.

"I got it from a Basian soldier," she confessed. "He had no idea what to do with it, and was more than happy to take my bread in exchange."

"You could've just taken it."

"I told you, I'm not hungry," she repeated. There was a note of something melancholy in her placid voice. Perhaps sadness was weighing on her stomach as well as her mind. He knew it happened, but he'd never actually seen it.

"You should soak those seeds in water for about a week."

She sat up, alarmed by the comment. Uncertain, but perhaps amused, she blinked at him. "Is botany required in our military now?"

"Saibamen didn't always grow riht away. In my day, " he informed the Princess, suddenly very, and disquietingly, aware of just how _**young**_ she was. Twenty, for a female, was certainly adult by their standards, but to think that this girl couldn't imagine a time before the Arcosians had introduced them to the Planet Trade Organization.... though he knew full well that she could picture life before Freiza. "In my day, it took 'bout a week, but only a couple a days if you looked after 'em right."

"I see." She'd perked up slightly, and took the intact fruit into one hand. Expert fingers found the seam running down it's side, and pried the thick outer shell neatly in half, and plucked the pit from its center, dropping it, and the one Dodoria had spat at her after cleaning it off, into the empty glass. She stared at the halves intently, before handing both to the General. "Please give this to my brother. I don't think he wants to see me." He opened his mouth to protest, but she frowned and repeated, "I'm not hungry." He stood, and leaving his half on the table, delivered the other to the younger royal.

"Nappa, what are you doing over there?" the boy hissed, and he found himself without a suitable answer. "Fine, whatever," he glared at the piece of fruit scathingly, "as long as your ready for training this afternoon, do as you like." Inexplicably, what he liked was to return to Tomta. He attributed it to the food waiting at that table, and tramped back over to her side of the mess hall.

"So what're you gonna plant it in?"

She sighed. "I haven't really thought that out yet. I'm not sure when I'll be permitted to leave this ship, let alone to somewhere with with a compatible soil composition–"

"I'll bring you some."

"Excuse me?"

"Er..." The General screwed up his face, scratching at what was left of his failing hair. "What I mean is, Prince Vegeta and Raditz and me'll probably be on missions way before they let you, so... You know. Next time I'm somewhere with good dirt, I'll bring you back a whole bunch, if I can."

"Really?"

He grinned. "Buckets of it."

"That's..." She paused, what might have been a flicker of a smile tugged at her lips. "Thank you, General."

A commotion behind her cut off his reply. Raditz had woken up, and wandered into the mess hall, carrying a tray with a heaping pile of food disproportionate to his size to all looking on– the boy had hit a growth spurt a few weeks before, gods all help the kitchen staff– was attempting to slide his plate into Nappa's former place across from the prince, only to be chased off with a whimper.

He skulked around, searching for a place to rest his tray and eat. Tomta called him over with a silent inclination of her head, scooting her papers into a neat pile to clear a space to her side. Nappa froze, the half of cactus between readied open jaws, when he caught the longing stare fixed on his prize. With a sigh, he snapped the thing in half, and it was snatched up immediately with enthusiastic thanks. The boy took his seat hurriedly and set to wolfing down as much as the fork would allow. "Watch you don't choke," the Princess cautioned absently, distracted by the disappearing plate.

The little liar _**was**_ hungry.

"You've gotta eat something," he grumbled. "Really, you're making me nervous– you're gonna get faint. Here," he ripped his remaining half in half again. She shook her head, and he nudged her with the back of his hand until she finally accepted the thing held in it, and took a tentative, tiny bite.

It satisfied him more than it should have by any explanation when she began to nibble at it in earnest. Raditz beside her had engulfed his, and it occurred to the General with a pang of jealousy and an extreme sense of uneasiness that he would one day have to share more than food with this scrawny little brat. Though, he supposed the straggly boy wouldn't be for long. Saiyans grew in quick bursts, and in all likelihood he'd resemble a young man more than a boy after the next few months.

Vegeta got up to leave, and Nappa followed.

-----

He paused, to the woman's surprise, as something beyond instinct or a crippling fear of waking the boys sleeping next door popped into his head. "Princess?"

"Yes, General?" came the muffled reply, a warm puff of air against his chest.

"Can you breathe?"

"Not really," she admitted, and he could hear her voice straining. "You are sort of crushing me."

"Oops." He sat up. "Sorry," he grunted, and a careful motion pulled her on top of him. "'s that better?"

"Y-yes, thank you." Something in her hesitating tone didn't sit well with him, but he closed his eyes, settled his hands on her hips, and quickly pushed it from his mind.

* * *

Ladies and gentlemen, a fic about saving the species written by a girl who can't write smut. This is going to be boring xD

I hope you all enjoyed it anyway! Reviews are much appreciated :)


	3. Everybody Loves Leik

The princess had curled herself away from him, braid over her shoulder, tail over her hip, her usually composed expression marred by the occasional twitch and sleeping whimper outside of her control. He supposed he would grieve as well when it truly set in that he was among the last of his kind.

Usually, the unconscious display of weakness would have turned his stomach rather than tug at his heartstrings, but all things considered, she was keeping herself together admirably when wakeful; both of the royals were. They had lost their station, their people, their purpose. Vegeta had been torn from a father he'd come to idolize in his absence. Tomta had lost the opportunity to redeem herself in his eyes, though she'd lost the chance to prove herself a fit ruler five years before. She'd also lost a mate, and he could catch the name whispered under her breath between shaky, airy, sleepy nonsense.

Leik was a constant irritation: a good warrior, but a terrible soldier. His odd perception of 'fairness' had caused several complaints from the other men. He would fight with a handicap to level the playing field against weaker foes, allow them to get to their feet and continue before finishing them off, all in the name of his demented sense of valor. A saiyan lived for the thrill of battle, Nappa knew all too well, and it was no crime to enjoy the fight; however, Leik was not charged only with clearing planets. His responsibility was to ensure the princess's safety. Every enemy he gave a chance to recover could potentially be the one to blast a hole through his mate. He was stupid, and foolhardy, and yet she had adored him absolutely.

He supposed the idea of another man would take some getting used to after thirteen odd years, but one way or another, she would have had to adjust. The boy had suddenly taken ill, inexplicably, a few months before they were to be officially coupled. The boy who had an irritating knack for shorting out older model scouters simply by walking into a room, had been reduced to a trembling, feverish, wheezing mess, and only seemed to grow weaker with every visit from Freiza's medics. It was determined to be an alien virus he'd picked up on a mission, and there was no known approach to treating it. By all accounts, the Princess had scarcely left his side for a moment, and in spite of all advice and counsel, had never given up hope that he would make a full recovery.

He supposed there was no treatment for 'planet destroyed by gigantic meteorite.'

He propped himself up on an elbow, eyes trailing over her faintly scarred back and miserable expression. It wasn't nearly as pronounced as her brother's, or Raditz's, but there was a definite little widow's peak where her side swept hair fell away from her forehead. She really did resemble her brother upon close inspection. It wasn't evident at first, but they had the same lines to their faces, and sharp, severe features. He'd seen her eyes soften though, when she smiled. She had smiled only for Leik.

The previous night's curiosity had returned, but a faint sense of familiarity made him bolder. One large hand reached out to run his fingers experimentally down her back, along her spine, eventually meeting her tail. A shudder passed through her, and the princess flinched away from him with a frantic intake of gasped air. He withdrew the offending hand. She stirred, and let out a soft groan.

"Whoops. Did I wake you up?" He tried in a hushed voice, wincing when she replied.

"It's alright, General," she mumbled sleepily, nestling back into the covers, well away from him.

His mouth pulled to one side, silence save the occasional scuffle of movement outside, settled between them. Nappa thought back to her avoidance, and the look of quiet suffering on her face whenever he got too close for her liking. "Was I uh... I wasn't hurting you before, was I?"

"I'm not as strong as you, maybe, but I'm hardly made of glass."

"Well_** something'**_s sure bugging you."

"No," she lied quietly.

"You sure? The whole thing's been pretty straightforward. 'Cause you know, I could–"

"It's fine. I don't need affection General, I won't ask you to provide it under these circumstances. This is just for the species, after all."

He scrunched up his face. That had the same feel as one of Vegeta's stealth-insults, the kind that only hit him the next morning. He wasn't sure she'd meant it as such, but it still made him uneasy."Well, what if I wanna be 'affectionate?'" he replied obstinately. The frigid little thing's problem wasn't the situation, he thought gritting his teeth, it was _**him.**_

"Goodnight, General," was her only reply, rolling back over and burying her face in a tear-dampened pillow.

"Princess Tomta?" It wasn't quite familiar, but perhaps it was a step closer. Her name was in it at least.

"Yes, General?" he winced at her insistence on the title.

"Did you and Leik ever... you know...."

"No."

"So the night before last was...?"

"Yes."

"Oh." And suddenly, he felt guilty again– for doubting her restraint, he assured himself.

- - - -

Sex wasn't really an issue on Freiza's ship. Outside of Nappa, he supposed, the crew consisted of singles, or the spouses were back home. The bathrooms and showers were all together, there was no need to separate them. Most of the soldiers were what he would consider 'male' though that really did differ from one species to another. From what he'd heard, Zarbon's kind had three sexes, each capable of reproducing with the others with different results: A and B gave C, A and C gave B, B and C made A, and he didn't want to hazard as guess as to which Zarbon was. There were very few of any one race on board, and a combination of culture, behavior, and physiology tended to put a damper on interspecies relationships anyway. As a result of this, no one really thought twice about bursting into any given room, and the reptilian soldier who threw their door open squeaked in shock and covered his eyes when he noted the two naked Saiyans curled up asleep together.

The noise woke them. Nappa was a bit surprised to find a gigantic sapient Iguana in his room, but more shocked still to wake to find that somehow, as they slept, she'd somehow shifted into his arms. She looked more surprised still, and freed herself hurriedly, pulling the sheets up around herself as an afterthought, more for the intruder's benefit than her own. She'd spent far too long in and out of isolation chambers to particularly care if anyone saw her undressed.

"Uh... Freiza wants you three out as soon as possible," the soldier reported.

"You mean four?" The princess tried hopefully, and sighed when he shook his head.

"Nuh-un. The big guy, and the little ones." Tomta sighed, and buried her face on her pillow, and he heard her muttering something about silver linings, and time to train. "These are for you, though." He dropped an impressive stack of papers onto a small table near the door, with an audible thud. "By tonight. There's gonna be more tomorrow."

So much for that.

- - - - -

For the sake of his future structure, Nappa had decided to effectively bench the growing Saiyan, and put him on cleanup, picking off the odd straggling survivor, for the duration of the mission. Raditz had pissed and moaned about it endlessly the whole way back and the whole way there, only stopping when Vegeta had threatened to blast his hair off. The distance wasn't far enough to merit cold sleep, and between complaining, passive aggressive sulking and decidedly non-empty threats, he really wished it had.

Once his charges had scuttled off to bed, Nappa roamed the hallways in search of the remaining Saiyan. She wasn't in their room, or in the mess hall, and it was only after endless aimless wandering, far out of familiar territory that someone finally recognized him, and guessed his purpose. There had been conflict with a hostile planet, who'd refused to ultimately pay what they'd promised for the planet he had just returned from clearing. Tomta had been sent with a few of Freiza's miscellaneous soldiers, under Zarbon, for one last attempt at civility.

She'd left that morning, and would likely be gone for the better part of two months.

Nappa sighed, and set down the hulking bag of yellow-green soil he had been hauling so eagerly over his shoulder. It would have to wait.

- - - - - -

The better part of two months passed much as they had before, with only Raditz's addition, to his main charge's vexation, to deviate from their old routine. Save, perhaps, that his bed seemed a fraction too wide at night, and he found himself craving cactus fruit with no apparent provocation.

It was at an odd hour of the hypothetical day that he staggered back towards his room, exhausted and contented, after a particularly long day's training. He nearly tripped over something blocking a narrow, seldom-used hallway, and glanced back at the offending figure. He grinned for a moment, but then his face fell into a frown.

Languid and less than lucid, Tomta sat against the wall, curled into a half hearted little ball, armor scuffed and clothing singed and stained, but she appeared otherwise unharmed. She reeked of blood, ethanol and something sweet, and he noted the plastic bottle beside her.

"Do you know that the science officers have been brewing this under their beds? I'm not sure what to call it, but it's lovely." She giggled stupidly.

His eyes widened, aghast, and he dropped to his knees beside her, prying the bottle from her limp grasp. "Hey, stop that! Spit it out, right now! That shit's terrible for–"

"Don't worry. I'm not pregnant." She swayed woefully in place, the corners of her mouth down turned. "That's why I was seeing the medics to begin with. They'd be able to tell by now. There's nothing."

He sighed, plunking down beside her, and eyeing the scratched armor, and bruised knuckles. "Negotiating didn't so go well, huh?" She shook her head slowly, eyes slipping half shut.

"They wouldn't agree to the price they'd promised, so Zarbon gave the order to clear the planet."

"I don't get it. That sounds like fun."

She shook her head. "It was their ruler. The man we were negotiating with." She grit her teeth, hands curling into fists beneath dark green arm warmers, slurred words still steeled. "He begged me to spare him."

"Yeah, they do that all the time. Don't let 'em get to you. Just stomp on 'em."

"You don't understand." The drink was making her weepy, and her dark eyes were glassy and red. "Not his people, not his planet, just him. It wasn't_** right**_... A leader should be prepared to die for his people... Not condemn them all by being selfish, and then to have the nerve to...ugh, I've never felt so angry."

"D'ya kill him?"

"I blew a hole in his chest, but I don't feel any better." She sidled up closer beside him, and the sober saiyan set to checking the scratches and bloodstains marring the intoxicated girl's skin. None of the blood was hers, he discovered thankfully– she was unharmed.

"I envy them, Nappa." She had drawn her knees up to her chest, and glanced up at him, large brown eyes meeting his squarely for perhaps the first occasion. "They have a chance to fight for their planet, and their lives, and when they fail, they all get to go at once, together."' She buried her face against her bare knees, and began to sob. So that's what this was about.

"Uh..." She was distressed, he knew that much, but what to do about it was another matter entirely. Suddenly, he missed Robot-princess. "C'mon. Let's get you to bed, you can sleep this off." He tugged her to her feet, but she swayed uneasily before collapsing against the wall with a clatter. "Ok, that's no good." He scooped her up into his arms, carefully, and she groaned.

"I'm not feeling so well."

"I'll ask Dodoria if he can spare a bucket for you," he muttered, more to himself, but to his surprise, she giggled again. He smiled, despite himself. Sure, it was probably the drink more than himself, but she'd been crying, and now she was laughing– because of _**him. **_She'd actually used his _**name. **_A self-satisfied little grin spread across his face. Robo-princess was certainly easy to handle, but it was nice to know that between the machine and the drunken mess, there was probably a genuine 'Tomta,' who wasn't completely averse to the idea of him.

He ducked cautiously around a corner, mindful of the sounds of approaching footsteps. He'd be loathed to let Prince Vegeta see his sister this way, and if anyone else did, the Princess would never live it down. "What were you thinking, anyway?" He growled, clutching her a bit closer to his armored chest.

"They say alcohol makes you stupid," she slurred. "I thought it might be nice to be dumb for a while, but I'm still miserable, and now I'm sick on top of it."

He supposed it could have been worse. She could have been an angry drunk. There was a definite temper running through her family, and he got enough of it daily from her brother. He was incredibly articulate for a child, especially when irate– so, most of the time.

They'd reached their room without incident, and he set her down, allowing her to brace herself against him when her legs threatened to buckle. It was unnerving, watching her stumble. It was why he'd never doubted her parentage. Tomta, when not addled by unfamiliar drinks, carried herself with an exceptional grace that he couldn't imagine being learned– it ran in her blood, her brother's blood. Tomta had managed to retain her dignity after being deemed an absolute failure. He imagined it would be exhausting. As stupid as this was, he could see the appeal, even as she scrambled frantically towards an empty trash basket in the corner, and fell to her knees gripping weakly at it's sides. Her shoulders heaved, but the feeling passed before she was actually sick, and the woman slumped over it lamely. "I am pathetic, aren't I?" she mused into the empty bin with a hiccup.

"You're a lightweight. S' no big deal."

She sighed, and slumped listlessly onto the floor. "I am a grandiose failure," she remarked, an ill fitting, dreary smile playing across her lips. "Demoted from warrior to brood mare, and I can't even do _**that**_ right. Everything else manages it just fine."

He helped her clamber to her unsteady feet. "You know, for future reference, you'd probably be able to see straight if you'd eaten something first." She hummed a half-hearted response, and sat, slumped over, on their bed, head hanging weakly.

"Don't move," he said suddenly grabbing something and ducking out into the hallway. He returned a moment later, after a quick trip to one of the taps out in the hallway, and tossed the dampened cloth in her direction. Her reflexes were slowed, but still quick enough to catch the thing, raising an eyebrow at him. "You're still all bloody," he reminded her.

"Oh. Right." She set numbly to scrubbing the dried blood caked on to her arms and face, before fumbling out of her armor, and crawling into bed.

He followed, surprised when she settled against him instead of her favored place as far away as possible. The drink did strange things to people. Some became angry, others spoke too much, but Tomta simply seemed to emote under it's influence. In a moment, she'd burst into out-of-place, undignified tears, shuddering to a stop at the sound of movement in the next room, only to resume after a few choked breaths.

He hushed her, pulling the girl close, one massive hand patting her shoulder in an uncomfortable gesture of reassurance. "Hey, calm down. You're gonna sleep this off, and then everything'll be fine."

He'd missed her, the last few weeks. Not this, of course, this was just bizarre, but there was something unbalanced about the three of them without her. Perhaps it was the worry that her pride would compel her to offend someone important again, not that he could really do much to protect her if she did. Vegeta was in the habit of doing the same, and had Freiza's favour to fall back on– perhaps it extended to anyone sharing his blood. The young prince hadn't mentioned her once on their assignment, and seemed to tense whenever anyone else did. Nappa had begun to wonder how he'd react to their children; he'd been imagining them a lot, recently. They'd hopefully inherit her intellect and tenacity, his strength. She seemed to be adapting to the idea.

"Oh Leik," she sighed between sobs, rolling away to bury her face in the pillow clutched in her arms as she drifted off to sleep. "I miss him, Nappa. So much."

Well so much for that.


End file.
